Kemble's Cascade

Although I've read about it a number of times before this was the
first time I'd seen it for myself and I was quite surprised at
just how straight the line of stars appeared to be. I was very
happy to have finally seen it.

At 19:58 UT, while looking with the
binocular, I saw a very faint satellite pass right through the
cascade, about two thirds of the way "down" the line.

Mars and M45

Noticed that Mars and M45 had
now risen above the roofs to the east of me. Looking at them both
with the binocular I estimated that they were no more (and perhaps
slightly less) than two binocular field widths apart.

Mars, in the binocular, was interesting in that it was obviously a
non-stellar object. I'm not sure if this was just down to
brightness/contrast or if I actually was seeing a hint of a disc.
The colour in the binocular was a rather vivid orange.

By 20:27 UT there seemed to be more mist
forming. It was getting increasingly hard to see
M45 with the naked eye. The sky above me,
however, seemed as clear as ever — perhaps a little darker
and clearer than it was at the start of the session.

Mist and smoke

By 20:27 UT there seemed to be more mist
forming. It was getting increasingly hard to see
M45 with the naked eye. The sky above me,
however, seemed as clear as ever — perhaps a little darker
and clearer than it was at the start of the session.

Also, around this time, I noticed my first hazard of winter
observing: smoke from people's fires. Given that nights are
getting colder now and given that I'm surrounded on three sides by
people who have and use open fireplaces I wonder how much of an
obstacle this will be?

NGC 1502 and testing dark adaption

After checking a couple of books, a couple of charts, and some
pages on the net I realised that,
earlier,
when I'd been looking at Kemble's Cascade, I'd also been looking
at NGC 1502.

At this point I realised that the cascade is also an interesting
test of how dark adapted I am. I'd popped indoors to check the
books, charts and the net and, obviously, I'd exposed myself to
normal lighting and so had ruined the dark adaption that I'd built
up earlier. When I came back outside and went to look at the
cascade again I could hardly make it out — initially all I
could see were the brighter stars that are around it.

As the minutes passed the cascade again became more and more
visible in the binocular. I think this might serve as a useful
gauge of how dark adapted I am (and how transparent my skies are)
during the course of winter.

The Hyades

At 21:11 UT I noticed that the Hyades
(AKA Melotte 25,
Caldwell 41) had cleared the roofs to the East of me.
While they were hard to make out with the naked eye due to the
rising mist I could clearly see them with the binocular.

In the binocular Aldebaran was interesting to watch
as it was twinkling between red and green. I took from this that
the mist really was making a mess of things and that the air
wasn't very steady at all. Earlier I had been thinking about
getting the 130M out to have a look at
Mars but at the time the rising mist put me off.
If the view I had of Aldebaran in the binocular was anything to go
by this was probably a good decision.

By 21:15 UT the cold and the damp was
starting to get a little too much so I decided to call an end to
the session. I wasn't really that well dressed for the conditions
— I'm going to have to dig out some of my winter gear for
future sessions.